The KPFA Evening News, Weekdays – January 9, 2004

Governor Schwarzenegger unveils a State budget with 4.6 billion dollars in cuts, a transfer of property tax monies from local to state government, and no new taxes – not even for the state’s millionaires

Democrats critisize the cuts in health and welfare programs for the State’s poorest children, seniors, and people with AIDS and disabilities – prison reform groups cautiously welcome the plan to cut the state’s corrections budget

Oakland Schools Administrator Randolph Ward announces a short list of five Oakland elementary schools that face closure – last night Ward held a tumultuous hearing on his plan, attended by hundreds of parents and teachers

The Nation’s unemployment rate drops in December, not because of job creation, but because frustrated jobseekers have given up looking for work

The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the case of a U.S.-born man captured during fighting in Afghanistan and held without charges

An explosion rips through worshippers at a shiite Mosque in Baquba, Irak killing 5 people and wounding dozens